Keep Customers Hooked With This Content Format That Never Goes Out of Style

Content is a must-have for just about any business, and there are some time tested content types that work every time.

One of the best focuses on educating your audience.

It's how-to content, and audiences love it.

Everyone has questions about how to do something, and your brand can deliver exactly the answers they're looking for.

But one mistake a lot of companies make is focusing more on the upper end of their sales funnel with their how-to content.

There's also a ton of opportunity to focus on lower-funnel segments as well.

People on the cusp of making a purchase are just as likely to have “how-to” questions as those who are just doing some initial research.

In a recent blog post, The Content Marketing Institute explains exactly how to design and implement your own series of great how-to resources for your customers.

How to launch a program of how-to content

Does your team focus on the top of the marketing funnel, developing most of your content to create brand awareness and nurture leads?

If so, you may miss the rewards that come from focusing on the bottom or (depending on how you define your funnel) below.

I’m talking about focusing on the content needs of people who are on the verge of buying what you sell, people who have just bought, and people who are between purchases.

If you’re starting to develop how-to content as part of your marketing strategy, “focus on the questions and topics most core to your business first,” Eric says.

Specifically, he suggests developing your how-to content in this order:

1. Create shopping-related content.

2. Create post-purchase content.

3. Create between-purchase content.

[image source: The Content Marketing Institute]

These three content areas parallel three of the four primary reasons – as listed in a recent CMI article – for companies to use content marketing:

Shopping-related content builds an interested and engaged audience.

Post-purchase content increases sales with new customers.

Between-purchase content builds loyalty and increases revenue with existing customers.

Eric’s approach doesn’t explicitly address the fourth primary reason to use content marketing – to create brand awareness (the top stage of the funnel) – but you can bet awareness comes along for the ride at REI.

As Todd Wheatland put it in his Content Marketing World presentation, Marketing Below the Funnel, a passionate, engaged customer base becomes “a legion of fans who race to the top of the funnel and pull in new people.”

Here’s how Todd illustrates this point in one of his slides. (I’ve added Eric’s labels.)

[image source: The Content Marketing Institute]

In other words, when you meet people’s needs low on or below the funnel, as REI does with its how-to content, you attract new people at the top as well.